Adrenaline
by xenascully
Summary: Set in season one. A hunt. A hurt. A hug. Traumatized/hurt Sam. Heroic/comforting big brother Dean.


**Adrenaline**

**Summary: Set in season one. A hunt. A hurt. A hug. Traumatized/hurt Sam. Heroic/comforting big brother Dean.**

**Rated T for swears and...maybe some graphic medical imagery?**

**AN: For Stories4Charity, for Judy L. "I just want a nice fluffy piece after the finale of Supernatural. Yes a Supernatural story. Would prefer earlier seasons but I am leaving a lot of this up to you. Always like sick/hurt Sam with big brother Dean." **

**AN2: Kitsune has been used on the show before...but kinda in the wrong way. What I had planned for this one required something specific and this kinda fit the bill nicely. Hope you enjoy.**

**Um...AN3: I hope I was successful in fulfilling this prompt. The end is fluffy...I think. LOL.**

***~.~***

"Sam!" Dean shouted as he ran. "Sammy!"

Sam was screaming. There was fire, and Sam was screaming, and Dean couldn't make himself move any faster than he already was.

They'd come to Lolo, Montana four days ago, hunting a god-knows-what that'd been screwing with the locals for the better part of a year. It hit the papers two weeks earlier, and that's where Sam had found out about it. Twelve dead, twenty-seven seriously injured. One made the paper nationwide, and after a lot of digging, Sam had found the rest of the reports in the local articles online.

The one that had made national news happened to be a man in his mid-thirties who had been traveling with his wife. It had been the middle of the night, and he'd pulled his car over after saying he'd seen a woman in the road. His wife saw nothing there, but the man had gotten out to go and save her from the oncoming traffic. He was struck by a trucker, killed upon impact. The mystery woman was never found.

Of course, Sam had gotten a feeling about it and started digging. The deaths were all marked as freak accidents, none of them having witnesses. The survivors had all mentioned seeing a woman in need of help, and that they'd tried to save her from being hurt, only to have been hurt themselves.

The hunters' initial thought was that this was another woman-in-white. After talking to the witnesses that were willing to talk to them, none of them seemed to recall much about what the woman had been wearing. In fact, none of them seemed to recall much of anything about the woman at all. Just that she was in danger and they'd had an overwhelming instinct to help.

The only real lead they had was the stretch of land that most of the incidents had happened on. It was a long stretch of road laid between a massive area of woods, part of which happened to be hunting grounds. So their only option for checking everything out was when hunting time was over for the day, and whatever little daylight they had, had run out pretty quickly...

"_So we're in agreement that this is probably a spirit, right?" Sam asked as they walked through the forest._

"_Seems like the only explanation," Dean replied with a nod. "Whatever the case, we've got plenty of salt, lighter fluid, and matches. Not much that can't at least be slowed down with salt rounds and iron," he added._

"_You think she...this ghost...was victim of a hit and run and no one ever found her body?"_

"_Yeah. Maybe what these people keep seein' is an echo."_

"_But it's not all in one exact spot, though," Sam commented. _

"_Who knows, man. I just wanna burn this bitch and get the hell outta here before the sun comes back up."_

"_If it was a hit and run and no one ever found the body...it could be in a hundred different places by now, dragged off by animals and whatever else," Sam said with a grimace._

"_We'll figure it out," Dean told him. "Where there's a will, there's a way, right?"_

"_Agh!" Sam cried out as he crumbled to the ground beside his brother._

"_Sam?" Dean turned to see that his brother had stepped into some sort of trap. "Jesus!" he shouted as he dropped to his knees, pushing the brush out of the way of Sam's injured ankle. "Is this a Punji trap?" he yelled. "Is this a fucking Punji trap?!"_

_The sharp wooden spikes had been placed on two flat pieces of wood connected together by some kind of flexible hard rubber, placed in a foot-sized hole in the ground, and hidden by leaves and other debris. When Sam had stepped in it, the boards had slammed together over either side of his right ankle. Right through his pant leg and through his boot. When Dean looked at Sam's face, he noted that it had lost all color, and Sam was struggling to keep it together._

"_Dude..." Dean panicked for a moment. "I...we gotta get you back to the car, man. I ain't got the right first aid kit for this."_

"_Just...just get it offa me!" Sam said, grunting through his words, trying to breathe through the pain._

"_You're gonna bleed out if we do that," Dean argued. "I'll take it out when we get you to the car, okay? C'mon, it's not that far."_

_Sam whined for a moment, but reluctantly nodded and Dean stood to help him up. Sam cried out as he was hoisted into an upright position, and the pain kicked in full-on once they started moving, Dean barely able to stop the larger man's sudden descent back to the ground. "Stop! Stop!" Sam shouted, panicking at the level of pain shooting up his leg now._

"_Okay!" Dean complied, gently setting him back to the ground. "Fuck, man, you probably broke something..." And that really wasn't covering it, Dean knew. He couldn't be sure what all those knife-like rods were puncturing in his brother's leg. Sam didn't break a sweat over many injuries, though, and right now there were buckets of it dripping down his face. "Okay, Sammy. It's gonna be okay. I'm gonna run back to the car and grab the kit. I'll be back; five minutes tops, okay? It'll be faster than dragging you there anyway."_

"_'kay," Sam said in a rush out of breath._

_Dean stood, ready to take off, but hesitating to leave Sam alone in the near dark. He threw off his back-pack. "Here," Dean said as he handed Sam a flashlight and his water canteen. "You got your gun?"_

"_'course I have my gun, Dean!" Sam said through his teeth, gritting against the pain._

"_Five minutes," Dean assured him._

"_Just go!"_

_Dean looked at him for another moment before tearing off toward the car._

_It was just two minutes later that Sam heard screaming. It was a child's scream, he could tell that much. "Hello?" he called out._

"_Help!" the child's voice called out, from where Sam couldn't tell. _

"_Where are you?" he yelled back, his own predicament no longer the highest thing on his list of priorities. It was then that he smelled the smoke._

"_Help me!" _

_Adrenaline ran renewed through Sam in that moment, and he reached down to the trap that was mangling his ankle, grabbed hold of it on either side and screamed through the pain caused by prying it off of himself. He threw the contraption to the ground and pulled off his bloody boot with another cry. He took his over-shirt off, wrapped it tightly around the bleeding wounds, then pushed to stand up and head toward the crying child and the smell of smoke..._

_*~.~*_

_Five minutes was all it took. Almost exactly that, according to Dean's watch. But when he returned to where he'd left Sam, all that he found was their bags, the bloody trap, and Sam's right boot. That's when he heard his brother's screams and smelled the smoke, himself._

"Sammy!" Dean called out again as he caught sight of the burning barn about fifty yards away from where he was currently standing, paused to hear anything from his brother in return. But Sam was silent now, and a whole new feeling of dread spread over Dean before he took off running toward the building. "Sam!" he called out again, dropping the first aid kit so he could run even just the slightest bit faster.

He counted the seconds it took him to bust through the open door of the barn. He saw Sam right away. He was lying motionless on his back, a beam across his chest, and flames burning through the jeans on his already injured leg. "Sammy!" Dean shouted, coughing as he rushed toward his brother through the smoke and surrounding flames.

He tore off his over-shirt and went straight for Sam's leg, putting out the flames before looking to his brother's face. "Sam?" he moved to check for a pulse, breathing a sigh of relief when he felt it going strong.

Something collapsed behind him, sending sparks of flame and debris in their direction, and it pushed his nerves to the edge. "Sam, you gotta get up, man!" he yelled as he positioned himself to remove the beam that had his brother pinned. With a roar, Dean pulled the heavy object off of Sam and dropped it away from his brother's body. "Sam!" he shouted again, coughing again from the smoke. "You're gonna make me carry your gigantor ass, aren't you!" Something else collapsed, and Dean didn't give a second thought to looking to see what it was. He scooped his brother up, almost falling over at the unexpected weight of him, and headed for the door as fast as humanly possible.

He got him as far as maybe twenty-five feet before Sam woke up coughing and flailing, gasping for air and causing Dean to collapse to the ground with him.

"Dean!" Sam shouted, then coughed, hacking against the smoke in his lungs. "Dean!"

"I'm here, Sammy!" Dean replied. "Jesus... Stop! You're gonna make it worse!"

"Dean!" Sam's eyes met his brother's, and then he looked back toward the burning barn. His eyes widened. "Dean!"

"Calm down! You're okay!"

"No! There's...there's a-" he coughed again before he could finish, "A little girl! In the barn!" Another coughing fit took him over.

"There's nobody in there, Sam, it's okay!"

"No you don't... don't understand! It's why I went in!"

"Sam..." Dean shook his head and looked back at the barn right as the damn thing decided to completely collapse in on itself.

"No!" Sam shouted. "Nonono!" and tears were streaming down his face.

"Sammy, it's okay!" Dean said, grabbing onto his brother's chin in effort to make him look at him. "Sammy, there's nothing we can do, okay? You tried your best, little brother. You tried..." And then Sam was lying back in Dean's arms, the fight gone in him, his breaths coming rapid and shallow. "Sam?" Dean's worry, if possible, grew even stronger. "Sam, answer me! Sammy!"

There was no thought after that. There was no struggle. None at all, because suddenly Dean needed to be superhuman, and if that's what was gonna save his little brother, by god that's what he would become.

He was running through the forest now, Sam thrown over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, careful not to touch his wounded leg as he whipped past trees and avoided any fishy-looking areas that might be laden with more barbaric traps by whatever Vietnam vet happened to be living and hunting in these woods.

Somehow he made it to the car within ten minutes, and Sam was still breathing. He carefully laid him out in the back seat, the treatment plan for shock running through his head, red flags warning about moving the patient unless it was an emergency. Well he'd be damned if he was gonna let Sam wait around in the middle of the woods with a bleeding, burned leg and lungs full of smoke while an ambulance tried to get in there.

He did what he knew he could. Or at least he tried. Having abandoned all of their supplies in the middle of the damn forest, Dean was without the good first aid kit. They only had one left, and it was pretty basic. Thank god this one happened to have the morphine he'd ganked from the last ER they'd visited.

Dean slammed the trunk closed once he retrieved the small kit, and he went back to his brother, grateful for the full moon and clear night sky as it seemed almost like daylight right then. The bloodied, charred pant leg would have to go, and he dreaded what he'd find beneath it. He pulled out his pocket knife and snapped it open, then grabbed a hold of what was left of Sam's jeans on his right leg. He started slicing through the fabric like it was butter, then peeled it away.

"Aghh!" Sam screamed, arms flailing, hands grabbing for purchase for anything within reach to the sides of himself.

"Hey hey hey! Sammy, you're okay!" Dean told him, abandoning the task for a moment as he pressed further into the back seat so he could hover into Sam's view. He put a hand on Sam's cheek and tried to get him to meet his eyes. "Sam!" he shouted. "Listen to me, okay? You've gotta calm down. You're in shock, man, and your leg needs some emergency mending before I can get you to a doc, okay?"

Sam looked at him and tried to make himself calm down. The pain was intense. The last thing he could remember was the burning; the flames he couldn't reach to put out... He nodded to Dean, and watched the small amount of relief that showed on his face.

"I'm gonna give you something for the pain, 'cause this is probably gonna suck," Dean told him. "But you gotta stay with me, okay?"

"Okay," Sam said on a pained exhale. "'kay, De..."

Dean brushed his brother's hair out of his face before going back to Sam's leg. He grimaced at the state of it, and grabbed a syringe and the vial of morphine from the kit. "I'm gonna inject this in your thigh in hopes that it kinda reaches your leg before anything else," he told him as he filled the syringe. "Gonna start you out at four milligrams. They gave me like...three in the ER last time, right? You're gigantic, and this has gotta hurt worse than my bruised ribs did."

"Uh huh," Sam said weakly. Dean didn't like the way Sam was shaking.

Once he got the air bubbles out, he stuck the needle into Sam's thigh through the denim and pressed the plunger in slowly. Sam didn't even flinch. "Okay," Dean said as he pulled it out and threw it back in with the kit. "This part's probably gonna suck." He grabbed for what was left of Sam's once-white sock and carefully began to pull it down. Sam's body tensed, his mouth keeping closed as he tried to bite off a scream. "Maybe I should wait till the morphine kick in..."

"Just...just do it," Sam told him. "Just do it f-fast..."

Dean sighed, shaking his head, and complied, but not as quickly as Sam wanted, because hell if he was gonna mess him up worse than he already was. "I can't believe you took that damn trap off," he told him, trying to distract his brother from his administrations. "What the hell were you thinkin', huh?" Sam wasn't sure, really. Not right now anyway. "Well, good news is, the fire kinda cauterized the puncture wounds," he told him. "Bad news is, I'm like 90% sure your ankle and foot probably have a few breaks. You don't happen to know how much blood you lost before that beam fell on you, do ya?"

Sam's head came up to look at his brother in confusion. "What?"

"Dude...never mind. Man you're lucky this burn ain't worse. But hell if it doesn't look like it hurts like a sonofabitch. Gotta clean it off, but I think it's at least second degree from the knee down. Can you sit up?" he asked. "I wanna scoot you down some so I can pour water over your leg without it getting all over the car."

"Uh huh...okay," Sam replied, pushing himself up shakily.

"Here, hang onto me, okay?" he said as he led Sam's hand to his shoulder. "I'll move you myself, but just hang on so you don't fall over." He grabbed the waistband of Sam's jeans with one hand, and Sam's good leg with the other, and pulled. Sam whimpered at the movement, and Dean let go of Sam's waistband in favor of leading Sam's bad leg gently to lay across his own.

Dean was kneeling in the grass beside the car, now, Sam hovering, bent over, forehead resting on his brother's shoulder as he breathed heavily through the pain. His bad leg was draped over Dean's lap, the other foot digging into the earth beneath Dean's other side. Dean put a hand on the back of Sam's head for a moment, trying to soothe him somehow.

Sam felt confused and cloudy as he laid hunched over his brother. For the life of him, he couldn't remember why his leg hurt to badly. Whatever it was, though, he was certain Dean would take care of him. Dean was saying something in his ear. He felt his hand in his hair, rubbing his scalp soothingly, and part of him was ready to drift off from the comfort of it. Then there was a cool sensation on his leg, and everything felt better for a few moments. Right up until it felt like fire instead, and nausea hit him like a freight train. Apparently Dean had seen it coming, because he led Sam's head over to the left so he wouldn't throw up on either of them—most importantly not on his injured leg—and the jarring that the heaving caused made the pain in his ankle flair up again.

He must've screamed, because Dean had Sam's face in both of his hands now, the look of concern as clear as day.

"Sam?" he heard Dean say. "Sammy, look at me. Look at me, okay?" And he tried. He really tried, but his eyes weren't focusing. "Sammy? Listen, your leg's bleeding again. I gotta get you to a hospital, okay? I can't treat this myself. All our crap is out in the woods. I'm scared you're gonna get an infection or something. You gonna give me shit? Because I'm takin' you whether you like it or not. Sam? Sam!"

Dean was officially freaking out now, because Sam wasn't responding. Again. And if there was anything that scared the shit out of Dean more than an injured Sam, it was an injured, unresponsive Sam. Dean found himself shoving his brother back into the car, pushing him all the way over this time, so there was enough room to keep his leg spread out on the seat without slamming the door on it, which meant Sam had to be sitting up a bit... Which made Dean nervous because he wasn't sure if Sam could manage sitting up at all right now.

He wrapped a clean shirt around Sam's bleeding foot, then carefully shut the door and climbed quickly into the driver's seat, stuck the key into the ignition and turned. And nothing. Nothing happened. "No..." Dean turned it again. Nothing. "No no no...you have got to be kidding me!" he yelled in frustration. He turned in his seat to look to Sam. His eyes were closed now. Dread melted molten hot over Dean. Sam was still breathing. He knew he was alive and had merely, and quite possibly mercifully lost consciousness. But he couldn't escape the thoughts of possible life-threatening causes.

"Sam!" he shouted, trying to get his brother to respond. "Sammy, wake up right now, or I swear to god I'll...I will sing Metallica a capella until your ears bleed!" No response. Dean's anxiety shot through the roof, and he searched his pockets frantically for his phone. Once he found it, he dialed 911. The phoned beeped at him. "No signal? Are you fucking kidding me right now?" he shouted. Pushing out of the car again, Dean held his phone high in the air in hopes of at least one bar. One measly bar of signal; that's all he needed. He began walking, panicking as he silently prayed for reception. He walked ten, twenty, thirty yards in either direction, to no avail, the entire time contemplating the kinds of shock Sam could be in. He had no idea how much blood his brother had lost already.

Tears of frustration and hopelessness filled Dean's eyes.

"Hey, kid," a man's voice sounded from behind him. "You need some help?"

He was an older man, salt and pepper hair, wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. How Dean hadn't seen or heard the pick-up truck pull up behind the Impala, he wasn't sure.

"I...my brother," Dean told him, not liking the shaking in his own voice. "He's hurt real bad, and I need to get him to a hospital, but my car is dead and I got no signal on my phone..."

"Huntin' accident?" the man inquired. "Happens a lot up here lately."

"Sort of," Dean replied anxiously. "Got his foot caught in a damn Punji trap. And there was a fire...I'm not sure how the hell that happened, but it got the same leg. He's in shock, I think..."

"There ain't a hospital for quite a ways," the man replied. "But I was a medic back in the day. And my wife's a vet. We've got a clinic back at the house, just a mile from here. I can take y'all on over and get him treated, and you can call for an ambulance from our land line. 'course, you'll have to get him into the back, here," he gestured toward the truck bed. "No room up front for the both of ya."

"That's fine," Dean hurriedly agreed. "Thank you." Dean turned and opened the back door of the Impala as the man got out of his truck to let down the tailgate. Dean picked Sam up bride-style, closing the door with a swing of his hips before he headed toward the truck. The bed was half loaded with unbundled hay.

"Leg does look pretty bad," the man commented. "You wanna sit him up there, I can hold him steady while you climb in."

Dean nodded and carefully sat Sam on the tailgate. The old man held him up around his middle, and Dean climbed up onto the bed.

"Name's Cal," the man told him.

"Dean," he replied. "I can't tell you how lucky it is that you happened to be driving by just now, Cal."

"Ain't luck, Dean," the man let out a small laugh. "I drive this stretch o' road every night around this time. I tend bar in town. My shift ended about twenty minutes ago."

"Still sounds like luck in my book," Dean told him as he carefully pulled Sam to the front of the bed. "I'm gonna stay back here with him, if that's okay."

"Fine by me," Cal replied as he closed the tailgate. "We'll be there in just a few minutes. Hang tight."

*~.~*

It took more like eight minutes, as far as Dean had counted. That and about twelve potholes. But Mrs. Cal, or whatever their last name was, was waiting out on the porch when they got there.

"Bess, we got an injured young man!" he called out as he got out of the parked truck. "Get the guest bed ready, will ya? Towels, water, and the med kit!"

"Oh dear!" Dean heard the woman worriedly say. "Right away, Cal. Should I call the hospital?"

"Probably so!" he called back. He turned to Dean as he lowered the tailgate. "Let's do this in reverse now, shall we?"

*~.~*

Dean laid Sam on the twin-sized mattress in the cozy little bedroom. Bess had everything set up just as Cal had asked, and was standing against the wall to make room for the men.

"What happened to the poor thing?" she asked. "Looks like he got himself caught in a bear trap! But those burns..."

"It was that damn Mackelroy again," Cal told her as he unwrapped the bloody shirt from Sam's leg. "He was supposed to have them damn Viet Cong traps outta the huntin' grounds. He's been told!"

"The burns came from a barn fire," Dean told her without looking away from his brother. "No idea how he got in there, but he got pinned down and the fire caught his leg before I was able to get to him."

"What on God's green earth was he going into a burning barn for?" Bess asked.

"Probably that old eyesore o' Ted's," Cal said as he began cleaning the wounds. "Thing was just waitin' to catch fire."

"Well there was nothing in _that_ old thing," Bess said. "Except maybe rats and barn owls."

"Sam said he went in after a little girl," Dean told them. "Said he was tryin' to save her. But I didn't see anyone when I went in. I dunno if he was hallucinating from the pain, or what..."

Bess and Cal shared a glance, and Dean's attention shot over to them.

"What?" Dean questioned. "What do you know about this?" his eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"Only that that was no little girl," Cal replied, turning his attention back to Sam.

"What does that mean?" Dean asked with raised brows.

"You'd think we were crazy if we told you," Bess replied.

"Trust me, lady," Dean said, "I've seen crazy, and you don't strike me as anything close."

Bess let out a breath and sat down in a chair that sat against the wall beside her. "Well, the story goes...after the war, Mackelroy's brother brought something back with him. It was kind of accidental, if I remember it right."

"Brought something?" Dean asked.

"Something followed him back," she elaborated. "Something...not human."

"_Two _somethings," Cal corrected. "Two ghosts."

"Spirits," she corrected right back. "And they're different than that. They're called...um...kittens. Something like kittens..."

"Kitchens," Cal countered.

"Kitchens?" Dean raised a brow.

"No that's not it, Cal," Bess said, shaking her head. "Anyway, they're a type of powerful spirit. And these two were friendly for the longest time. But something happened 'bout a year ago now," she said, a frown appearing on her face. "Some hunters came into town, though I don't think they ever did actually hunt anything. They were here for a day, and one of them ended up hurt. They did some kind of ritual out there in the woods where you boys were today. Cal saw them out there on his drive home one night."

"Darndest thing I ever saw," Cal said as he sewed. "They were chanting in some weird foreign language. I just kept on driving. Figured they were drunk or high on the marijuana."

"It was that next day that the accidents started happening," Bess continued. "Men were seeing a woman in distress, and going to save her, and ending up hurt, just like your friend here."

"My brother," Dean corrected.

"He's lucky he wasn't killed," she said. "There are people dying now, and we're pretty sure it's the same thing."

"Why haven't you told this to anyone else?" Dean asked.

"Because no one would believe us if we did," Cal told him. "What's anyone gonna do about it anyway?"

Dean was silent for a moment. "These hunters... Did you happen to ever catch a name?"

"No... But I did get his license plate."

*~.~*

"_Balls," _Bobby said on the other line. _"That'd be Harvey and Wallace. Damned idjits should've stuck around to make sure they'd gotten the job done."_

"Yeah well...they did. Except that there were two of the damn things," Dean told him, almost whispering so the couple wouldn't hear him talking. "My guess is that they were playing nice until someone up and killed their only family. Now they're out for revenge."

"_If that ain't hittin' the nail on the head," _Bobby replied. _"You're dealin' with a Kitsune, son. They're hellbent on revenge if the callin' is right for it. And they'll mess with you before they kill ya. Drive ya mad if they've got the time."_

"So how do I kill this thing? These people are telling me they heard chanting in another language. Exorcism then?"

"_Powerful exorcism," _he told him. _"One I've got written down somewhere here. It's somewhere in this pile of crap on my desk..."_

"I'm not leaving Sam until I know he's gonna be okay."

"_Well I figured that much. I can find this thing and fly out there in a matter of hours. 'course, ain't a plane that's gonna take me straight there. I'll have to drive some."_

"You shouldn't go out there alone, Bobby."

"_Our only other option is for you to tell your brother to wake up already so you can come out there with me once I get there."_

"I'll do that," Dean said with a slight grin. "Then maybe you can take a look at my car. Friggin' just died outta nowhere and left us stranded."

"_Yeah...you're car's probably fine, Dean. Kitsune was probably just messin' with ya."_

"Oh man I cannot _wait_ to kill this thing..."

*~.~*

Sam was in the hospital just long enough for them to stabilize him, set the bones in his foot and ankle, put him in a cast, and run a bag of antibiotics through his IV. And maybe also long enough for Dean to steal enough antibiotics and pain killers to last them a month. Then he snuck Sam's completely stoned-on-morphine ass out of there and to a hotel.

Bobby had called at some point while they were still in the hospital. There wasn't a flight anywhere nearby for another ten hours, and it'd be a few more once he landed till he could drive to them. So when Sam crashed the moment he hit his pillow, Dean was quick to follow his lead. He was exhausted. Between the lack of sleep and all of the fear and adrenaline that had coursed through his body in the last twenty-four hours, he was running on fumes.

He got a good three hours, just about, before Sam woke up screaming.

"Sam?" Dean tore out of the bed, flicking the light on as he discovered that yes, there was still somehow enough adrenaline left in him to punch him wide awake. He was at Sam's side in a heart beat. "Sammy? You need pain killers?" he asked as he brushed sweaty locks from his brother's forehead.

"Dean..." Sam looked at him with wet eyes. "I...couldn't save her," he told him.

Now Dean was used to Sam waking up from nightmares. Especially since what happened to Jess. But he never talked about them, and it took Dean a moment to realize that that wasn't what Sam had meant. "Sammy, it wasn't real," he told him.

"There was a little girl, Dean. She was just a kid," he told him, tears streaking his cheeks. "She was crying out for help, but I got there too late." He sniffled pathetically. "I watched her burn... Dean, I couldn't save her."

"Sammy, it wasn't real," Dean assured him. "I swear to you. The thing we were hunting? That's what that was. It was messing with you, Sam; luring you into a trap. There was no little girl. It was the Kitsune."

He watched Sam swallow, watched his eyes looked off to the side in thought. "Did you kill it?" he asked.

"Bobby's on his way," Dean told him, glad he didn't have to explain further. "We're gonna take care of it once he's here. But right now we both need sleep. I'm gonna get you some more of the good stuff, okay? Just don't puke on me again," he said as he went for the bag of stolen goods.

"Didn't puke on you," Sam mumbled. "Ugh...my leg..."

"Yeah, you went and broke the crap outta your ankle and stuff, dude. Zero weight on that thing for at least six weeks. I stole you some crutches," he told him as he opened the top on the big white bottle of lortab. "Here," he handed him one and a bottle of water. "Sit up." Sam did as he was told, holding himself up with one hand and taking the pill. He popped it into his mouth and then took the water, gulping a mouthful down to swallow the pain killer before he laid back down. "You need anything else?" Sam's eyes darted around anxiously in the air between them. "Dude, what?" he nudged Sam's shoulder.

"Will you... Can you stay?" Sam asked in a small voice.

"Where the hell else 'm I gonna go?"

"I mean...can you sleep here next to me?"

"Are you messin' with me right now?" Dean asked with a raised brow.

"Please?" Sam asked wetly, and Dean thought the kid might actually cry if he said no. It was like Sam was five all over again, scared the boogyman was gonna come in and take him away.

"Dude, you're..." Dean was gonna argue, tell him they were grown men and that Sam was too old for this kind of request, but part of him couldn't deny that he felt a little relieved by the notion. Parts of the past day had had him terrified of losing his brother. And part of him knew that it'd be a lot harder for nightmares to come through if he could feel Sam next to him, smell his gross, musty fever-sweat right there beside him, hear his breathing. That and he was too damn tired to argue. "Fine. But you're moving over closer to the end of the bed, 'cause I don't wanna accidentally kick your cast."

"I'll be fine, Dean," Sam said, voice filled with relief as he carefully scooted over, avoiding using his bad leg as he did so.

"Yeah well, if I break my foot on your broken foot, I'm gonna be pissed."

"You could sleep on the other side," Sam suggested.

"No," Dean replied flatly. If he did that, he wouldn't be between Sam and the door. He needed to be between Sam and the door. No ifs ands or buts.

He scooted down to get comfortable, then pulled the sheets and blankets up over them, reaching a hand up to flick off the light.

"Thanks, Dean," Sam said quietly.

"Can I ask you something?" Dean said, looking up at the ceiling. "Why do you need me to sleep here, exactly?"

Sam was quiet for a moment before he replied. "Sometimes...when I dream about how Jess died," he began, "Sometimes it's you up there, burning on the ceiling. And...I dunno what that means."

"Well I hope it doesn't mean you think I'm your girlfriend."

"Shuddup," Sam said, his voice cracking in the middle of the word.

"Hey, man," Dean said, turning his body to face his brother, and looking at him now that his eyes adjusted to the moonlit dark. "I get it. You're still high from the morphine, and you wanna do that octopus thing you always did when you were on pain meds as a kid, but you can't because your leg. So you're goin' for the feels instead."

"Nuh uh," Sam said, shaking his head in denial. Dean just smirked at him. "Okay so...maybe I'm a little...high. But I'm telling you the truth, man. It freaks me out. I dunno if my head is trying to tell me that I'm gonna end up getting you killed or what, but-"

"That's bullshit, Sam," Dean shot down right away. "That's just your subconscious messing with you. You think I don't have nightmares after a close call where things could've gone horribly wrong and I coulda lost you?"

Sam was quiet for a minute. Dean thought maybe he'd passed out. "Sometimes I miss when we were kids," Sam said, almost whispering. "I miss when I could crawl into bed when I got scared, and you'd hug me and tell me everything was gonna be okay, and I'd fall asleep like that. You always kept the nightmares away, De..."

Dean was struck silent for a moment. "Yeah. Sometimes I miss that, too, bud." And that wasn't something he called Sam often; not since they were kids. But once he said it, Sam was shifting, turning in the bed, carefully repositioning his injured leg so that he could turn onto his side to face Dean. The casted foot now behind him and out of the way, he snuggled up into his brother, head ducking under Dean's chin before he wrapped his arms around Dean's torso.

"I miss this, Dean," he whispered, then breathed him in. The smell that meant comfort and strength and unconditional love; family, home, and just _Dean_.

Dean was shocked for a few long moments, unsure of how he was supposed to react to this. But with Sam's hair tickling his nose, and the way his brother's face burrowed against his chest, he was overcome with memories of when Sam was small and his nightmares were about monsters, not the horrific death of his beloved girlfriend burning on the ceiling just like their mother had.

The familiarity of the position reminded Dean exactly what to do. His arm wrapped around Sam's back and up into his hair, and he rubbed the tips of his fingers into his brother's scalp, soothingly.

"Everything's gonna be okay, Sammy," he whispered. "I promise..."

~Fin~


End file.
